VOLCANOES. 245 



with the hypothesis of the decomposition of great masses of 

 water ?^ 



The discussion of these important physical questions does 

 not come within the scope of a work of this nature ; hut, while 

 we are considering these phenomena, we would enter somewhat 

 more into the question of the geographical distrihution of still 

 active volcanoes. We find, for instance, that in the New Worldj 

 three, viz., JoruUo, Popocatepetl, and the volcano of De la 

 Fragua, are situated at the respective distances of 80, 132, 

 and 196 miles from the sea-coast, while in Central Asia, as 

 Abel Remusatt first made known to geognosists, the Thian- 

 schan (Celestial Mountains), in which are situated the lava- 

 emitting mountain of Pe-schan, the solfatara of Urumtsi, and 

 the still active igneous mountain (Ho-tscheu) of Turfan, lie at 

 an almost equal distance (1480 to 1528 miles) from the shores 

 of the Polar Sea and those of the Indian Ocean. Pe-schan is 

 also fully 1360 miles distant from the Caspian Sea,$ and 172 

 and 218 miles from the seas of Issikul and Balkasch. It is 

 a fact worthy of notice, that among the four great parallel 

 mountain chains which traverse the Asiatic continent from 

 east to west, the Altai, the Thianschan, the- Kuen-lun, and 

 the Himalaya, it is not the latter chain, which is nearest to 

 the ocean, but the two inner ranges, the Thianschan and the 

 Kuen-lun, at the distance of 1600 and 720 miles from the sea, 

 which have fire-emitting mountains like ^tna and Vesuvius, 

 and generate ammonia like the volcano of Guatimala. Chi- 

 nese writers undoubtedly speak of lava streams when they de- 

 scribe the emissions of smoke and flame, which, issuing from 

 Pe-schan, devastated a space measuring ten ii§ in the first 

 and seventh centuries of our era. Burning masses of stone 

 flowed, according to their description, " like thin melted fat." 

 The facts that have been enumerated, and to which sufficient 

 attention has not been bestowed, render it probable that the 

 vicinity of the sea, and the penetration of sea water to the foci 

 of volcanoes, are not absolutely necessary to the eruption of 



* [See Daubeney On Volcanoes, Part iii., ch. xxxvi., xxxviii., xxxix.J 

 — Tr. 



t Abel Remusat, Lettre a M. Cordier, in the Annales de Chimie, t. v., 

 p. 137. 



t Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii., p. 30-33, 38-52, 70-80, and 426-428. 

 The existence of active volcanoes in Kordofan, 540 miles from the Red 

 Sea, lias been recently contradicted by Riippell, Reisen in Nubien, 1829, 

 8. 151. 



$ [A /« is a Chinese measurement, equal to about one thirtieth of a 



